The fat cat controllers: 9 ScotRail bosses earn £100k-plus
Amid timetable chaos and cost of living crisis, meet...
NINE bosses at Scotland’s beleaguered rail operator are being paid six-figure salaries, it has been revealed.
Recently nationalised ScotRail dis-closed the senior executives pocketed more than £100,000 a year.
It sparked claims that the managers are being rewarded with ‘bumper’ salaries during a cost-of-living crisis and only a month after the company’s train drivers walked out over a pay dispute.
Chief operating officer Joanne Maguire received a salary of between £175,000 and £180,000. Miss Maguire, formerly vice-principal at the University of the West of Scotland, was criticised by railway unions when she took on the role. They said she had no relevant experience.
Managing director Alex Hynes earned between £333,000 and £334,999 – which is paid for by Network Rail.
By comparison, Nicola Stur-geon earns £163,229 as First Minister, while Boris Johnson’s salary as Prime Minister is £164,080.
Scottish Labour transport spokesman Neil Bibby said: ‘Frontline workers have been forced to take industrial action for a fair pay deal and all the while part-time executives have been given bumper salaries by the SNP.’ ScotRail was asked to reveal its executive salaries in April when it was nationalised, but it has taken three months to publish the details. The RMT union claimed the operator deliberately postponed publish-ing salaries of senior staff while talks over industrial action by its members were ongoing.
The majority of ScotRail’s approximately 4,900 staff are paid between £20,000 and £59,000, with a further 177 receiving a salary between £60,000 and £99,000. But eight of ScotRail’s highest earners take home up to £1.3million a year between them.
Scottish Tory transport spokesman Graham Simpson said: ‘It seems extraordinary that ScotRail should have more than half a dozen executives being paid well over £100,000 a year when it is running what amounts to a skeleton service.
‘The SNP’s ham-fisted nation-alisation of ScotRail has been so badly botched that the sys-tem is now in chaos.’
David Lister, ScotRail’s asset director, earns between £150,000 and £155,000, and David Simp-son, service delivery director, earns between £135,000 and £140,000 but both were also entitled to a £7,500 car allow-ance each year. The revelations come after a chaotic May when a dispute between the Govern-ment and Aslef train drivers led to industrial action resulting in almost 700 services being can-celled on weekdays.
Aslef had rejected a 2.2 per cent pay offer but in June agreed to a 5 per cent deal which was taken to its members. The result of the members’ ballot is expected on July 11.
ScotRail said: ‘Pay needs to be set at fair market rates to attract and retain the best tal-ent to do that job.’ Transport Scotland said ministers had been assured the salaries ‘are commensurate with market rates for senior leaders at organ-isations on this size and scale’.
‘Ham-fisted nationalisation’